Thursday, July 16, 2009

Thrifty Thursday: It's Chic to Be Cheap {20}

This post is linked to Kimba's Do It Yourself Day at A Soft Place to Land.

For this edition of Thrifty Thursday, I want to talk about cats. Wait...don't click on the "x" in the corner of the screen and leave! I don't want to chat about just any kind of cats.

Copycats, to be exact, are what I want to blog about today.

The blogosphere has opened my eyes to all sorts of fabulous creative ideas, particularly in the homemaking realm. I've spent the past three years or so in a sort of semi-coma; and making my house look cute was the last thing on my mind most days. Mostly, I just wondered when I'd have five minutes to read a book or maybe wash my hair. Yep, that would be nice.

Seeing pictures of the wonderful ways other bloggers have transformed their spaces gave me a little lift of confidence. If they can do it, I can at least try, right? Instead of bemoaning the fact that I can't afford those fabulous Pottery Barn pillows, I can learn to make some! Rather than whining about not being able to choose a pricey desk at the local furniture store, I can head to Salvation Army and start scouting for the perfect desk to makeover.

I've started attempting to copy some of my favorite bloggers, and I thought I'd share one of my copycat projects with you today.

Somewhere out there, I saw a blogger use brown craft paper to cover some boxes for a unique storage solution for her home. Reading that entry sparked my interest, because I am currently searching for little things to make my makeover craft desk (link above) more homey.

When I saw these boxes from The Container Store online, priced at $8 to $10 a piece, I immediately remembered the blog post I'd seen a month or so earlier. I liked the natural color of the paper, and I thought it would coordinate well with my new craft area. I just knew I could try to copy The Container Store's idea, and I could do it for much, much less!

I shopped my house for some shoe boxes one afternoon. Lucky for me, Natalie has lots of shoes and Michaela Byrd has teeny feet. Check out the little bitty box on top!

I dragged took the girls to Wal-Mart one morning and spent a whopping $2 or so on a huge roll of brown craft paper. Then I let those boxes sit on my dining room table for another week or so.

Every time I passed them, I thought about how much I wanted to try to be a copycat, but I was just too scared that I'd mess up.

I am a recovering Type A, I think. This is why the Nester's mantra of "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful" rings so true with me.

Finally, I grabbed the craft paper one night after the girls went to bed and T was occupied with the History Channel.

No special directions here. I just cut big squares around the lids and boxes separately, and folded the paper up and over the inside of the box and lid until the surfaces were completely covered. Then I used Scotch tape to secure the paper to the inside of the boxes. No cutting required, unless there was an excess of paper!

This is what I ended up with:

They still need labels, but I'm not sure what exactly is going in each box, so I'm holding out.

They're not perfect, but they work for me! Free boxes, and I have a ton of that $2 paper left!

20 comments:

Some of my best ideas are copied. Okay, I guess technically that makes them someone else's ideas...Still it takes some talent to be able to copy things and add your own spin.Love that you did this on the cheap! And the itty bitty shoe box? It's killing me with the cuteness...

Stopping by from ASPTL. The boxes look great! I never thought of using brown craft paper. I've covered some shoe boxes, Christmas boxes, hat boxes and even some cereal boxes for storage around our house. I ususally use spray paint, fabric, scrapbooking paper, wrapping paper or pretty napkins w/ Modge Podge! Now I'll have to copycat your idea! Thanks!

That's a great DIY project! You mentioned they weren't perfect. No DIY project ever is...nothing ever goes exactly the way you want them to! :) Great storage idea! When you get the chance, check out my new blog!

This is Me

I'm a stay-at-home mom of three kids, a fluffy Pomeranian, and a rambunctious German Shepherd puppy. Happily married to T. We live in Virginia, but I secretly dream of what it would be like to have a place in NYC to escape to for random girls' shopping weekends. Target is my home away from home. I stay sane by doing creative projects around my home and taking lots of pictures. Stick around for realistic inspiration...on a budget!

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